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Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure - Episode Guide

Season 1

Hong Kong

Episode: 1x01 | Airdate: Jul 12, 2015

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Joanna begins her journey in Hong Kong, where she is keen to find the road she grew up on: She leaves Hong Kong and travels to Beijing by the brand new Bullet Train, on a ten-and-a-half hour journey, covering 1400 miles.

Joanna arrives in Beijing by night but it is teaming with life, thanks to its population of 21 million. In China's capital, Joanna discovers a city that is still communist but has embraced capitalism. A third of the world's luxury brands are sold there and she discovers that more Rolls Royces are sold in Beijing than anywhere else, despite a local price tag of £500,000 in a city where the average annual wage is just over £2000.

While in the capital, Joanna visits a bizarre Mao Tse-tung themed restaurant, where a cabaret is performed during dinner and flags are waved in celebration of Chairman Mao, whose cultural revolution in the 60s saw one-and-a-half million people killed.

Mongolia

Episode: 1x02 | Airdate: Jul 19, 2015

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In episode two, Joanna is in Mongolia and spends time with some Mongolian nomads, visits a giant statue of Genghis Khan and a gold mine. She spends time in the capital Ulan Bator where she tracks down the amazing Mongolian throat singers before catching the train to Putin's Russia. She meets Mongolian tradesmen on the train before crossing the border into Siberia.

Russia

Episode: 1x03 | Airdate: Jul 26, 2015

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In the final episode, Joanna is in deepest Siberia heading for Moscow, which she last visited in 1966.

Her first stop is Lake Baikal, one of the deepest lakes in the world. She drinks vodka with a local fisherman before getting back on the train for Krasnoyarsk where she meets an oligarch. From there it's across the vast expanse of Siberia to Yekaterinburg, a city with a dark history. It is where the Russian Royal family were murdered.

Joanna pushes on for Moscow, where she discovers a very different city from the one she saw in the sixties. She visits Stalin's nuclear bunker, encounters Russian models before finding the place where she was photographed in 1966 and that inspired the whole adventure.

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